Welcome to gardening, idiot!

I will admit that at first I was terrified as I scattered my first round of seed, those tiny, little seeds, along the thin line that my imagination had drawn in the long row that was entirely too overworked (My research had shown that they like "well worked" soil). Carrot seed, some sort of fancy variety that had caught my eye at my local garden center. however, despite my nail biting hesitance, I carried on, not having a single iota of a clue of what I was doing or for that matter what I would be seeing in that row one month, two months, even three months down the road. For, you see, I am absurdly new to the gardening world. Obsessed! But admittedly new. Even more absurd is that fact that I have apparently jumped in with both feet! Have you ever gotten really involved in a project, devoted hours of your already dwindling time to said project, and then in a moment of clarity, taken a step back and realized that the slightest possibility exists that you may actually be a little in over your head? Yes? Excellent, because I'm fucking feet deep at this point. I may have hit the "in over my head" portion of this project sometime during the process of hardening off my 8th flat of seed trays back in March. Boy, had I mastered those stupid flats. Pop a few seeds into the cell, water, cover and set under lights (thank God I happen to be married to a lighting technician or the latter and most complex step would have left me completely confounded). It's basically one giant, flat, perfectly sectioned Chia Pet. I got so good at that at one point I could get a basil seed to germinate in 48 hours (It was later determined that this is not so much 'good' as it is 'normal'). At any rate, the third to last mental note I made to myself about gardening was that this seed starting business was child's play.
Now, at some point or another I decided that it would be a good idea to start more stuff. Harder stuff, the kind of stuff that couldn't be started indoors. Stuff with a ridiculously finicky tap root system and enormous attraction for pest problems. Okay, I'm making that last bit up, remember I'm still just a novice. It was more like "I like carrots!" and then I bought a fancy packet of seeds without reading the back. A month later I have my face 2 inches from the soil wondering where the hell all of my carrot seedlings are. It is in situations like this when the mantra "try, try, try again" enters your brain, and boy, I just refuse to be licked by something as puny as a carrot. So I drop the rest of the packet in the dirt, swear that I will not be foiled by this simple root veggie, and walk away. Hold tight, because I'm about to drop some knowledge on you. Seeds germinate when the temperature rises to where they need it to be in order to germinate. All of them. With small seed, unless of course they are coated to create a heaviness (called "pelleting") to keep them in place, they are more likely to float in heavy rains or heavy watering. At the end of the first 80 degree day I ended up with roughly 200 lovely carrot seedlings, all nestled deeply together at the absolute very end of my garden row, by the kale, in the bottom of a shallow irrigation ditch. If I'm going to be successful in my new venture, then it seems that I am going to need to exercise a small amount of patience and maybe some good faith to go along with it. My carrots on the other hand, are going to have to move the fuck out.